


Karkat Futzes Around With His Computer

by Classpectanon



Series: Three Hundred And Sixty Five Ficlets About Homestuck [27]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Coding, Gen, Slice of Life, a lot of cuss words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29031144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Classpectanon/pseuds/Classpectanon
Summary: Karkat was always loud, at all times of day. It was perhaps the one constant to him, besides the presence of throat lozenges that many friends swore up and down would some day destroy his throat, but the moment never came, and he was 13, so who gave a shit? There were more important things to do, like curse at his new computer whenever it failed to deliver a message to his Discords. He sat there, watching the message remain obstinately grey, chugging and chugging, as the Fucks and Shits grew more intense and frequent, to a voracious fever pitch.27/365
Relationships: Karkat Vantas & A Computer
Series: Three Hundred And Sixty Five Ficlets About Homestuck [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085684
Kudos: 9





	Karkat Futzes Around With His Computer

Karkat grunted with effort, giving his desktop computer tower a solid couple of thwacks with the side of his hand. Downstairs, a shrill fatherly grumble to stop making such a racket, to which Karkat eagerly replied with a firestorm of loving expletives, carried throughout the little suburban home through the sound-channeling capabilities of those little air duct things that your AC comes through, and Karkat being very loud.

Karkat was always loud, at all times of day. It was perhaps the one constant to him, besides the presence of throat lozenges that many friends swore up and down would some day destroy his throat, but the moment never came, and he was 13, so who gave a shit? There were more important things to do, like curse at his new computer whenever it failed to deliver a message to his Discords. He sat there, watching the message remain obstinately grey, chugging and chugging, as the Fucks and Shits grew more intense and frequent, to a voracious fever pitch.

Then, he thwacked his computer again and the message sent. Yes, instinctively he knew two things. One was that "this is bad for the computer", which was true. Two is that "hitting the computer had no correlation to sending the message to Discord, finally", which is also true. Counterpoint: Fuck off. An old radio, back when they still used to be called "boom boxes" or some shit like that, played one of his dad's Rage Against The Machine records, yet another of the many things that Karkat devoured voraciously, similarly to amateur programming textbooks and the occasional treat of hot pockets.

Karkat grumbled, scooting out of his chair and bending down to look underneath the computer for the router. Thankfully, his dad let him put the router in his bedroom because his dad didn't need a computer and just used his phone for pretty much all of his browsing, and that meant Karkat could really get the best speeds possible, which were shit, because Comcast sucked donkey balls, but shit + 1 internet speeds is better than shit + 0 being beamed through a thousand layers of drywall.

It was as he suspected. One of the little blinkenlights was not blinking in the normal blinking fashion that it was supposed to be blinking at, blinking. And then another of the little blinkenlights was just off entirely. Karkat was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a smart boy, or even a very smart person, but he was angry, and able to read into some of the lights that normally were on and blinking were either off or blinking incorrectly. Clearly, something was fucked with his router. Trying to find a sufficiently narrow object ("like Sollux's dick", he joked last time this happened) to hit the reset button was, and always will be, a fool's errand, so he grabbed the plug out of the wall and yanked it out.

Perhaps in ten years when Karkat was an epic awesome computer programmer who made video games or some shit and knew his way around a computer, he would know how to actually diagnose and fix a router rather than "yank out the cord from the plug in the wall and wait a minute and hope for the best", but today, at 13, all he knew about computers was "to build one, put tab A in slot A until you are done" like he had done for this six hundred dollar piece of birthday shit. Fucking piece of garbage shit machine junk buster.

Karkat got up, immediately bumping his head on the underside of his desk and letting out another hurricane of curse words, most of them "Fuck", and then bent back down, tried to bend up again, and immediately bumped his head a second time, devolving into wordless, almost monkey-like howls and shrieks of inordinate rage. Eventually, he managed to settle himself down on his seat, pull it back up under the chair, and wait for all the blinkenlights to turn back on on his router.

When they did, his computer made a foul noise, and immediately crashed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. All views, kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated.  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/classpectanon)


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